Locking folding knives are well-known in the art and identify a class of folding knives having a blade pivotally connected to a handle and a lock that secures the blade in an open position. In a closed position, a cutting edge of the blade resides within the handle, and the handle protects the cutting edge from inadvertent contact that might damage the cutting edge or cause personal injury. To transition to an open position, the blade pivots with respect to the handle to expose the cutting edge, and the lock engages to hold the blade in the open position.
Many different lock designs exist to allow the lock to reliably and consistently function over the course of thousands of cycles and decades of use, and the different lock designs often involve a balancing of competing goals within limits imposed by aesthetics and materials. Several existing designs use a lock bar which is an integral part of the knife handle. Optimal reliability and longevity/service life of an integral lock bar is dependent upon the length of the lock bar and the interrelationship of the interface of the locking surface and the deflection axis of the lock bar. A longer lock bar requires less angle of deflection which tends to reduce the tendency for fatigue, but also complicates and limits the objective of optimum geometry as between the deflection axis and the lock surface axis while preserving desirable aesthetics.
The need exists for an improved locking folding knife that may overcome one or more disadvantages of existing integral lock bar designs. For example, an improved design may permit a lengthened lock bar and allow for optimum placement of the deflection axis in handles which present geometric challenges such as handles which fit the natural curve of the hand.